Refuge Saga(WT)

Chapter Five

Chapter V

“That was good Mrs. Vega!” Matthew announced as his fork clattered on the plane tin plate.


“Thank you Matthew.” Elizabeth smiled at him as she stood and began clearing the table.


Clair stood quickly, “Let us do it, pleas Mrs. Vega.”


Elizabeth paused. “Alright, just let me get a plate for your ma and pa.” She retrieved matching plates from the cupboard and began putting eggs and bacon, some biscuits and gravy and good hunk of ham on the plate. She hoped something in this would piqué his appetite; the man she’d once dubbed Paul Bunion had melted away in the last few months. Now he looked like a collection of bones on which clothing had been hung. Elizabeth ladled the plain but hardy oatmeal into another bowl for Abigail and laid the whole bit in a covered basket to take out to the bunkhouse.





“Well I think that is a bit more than I can eat.” George said eyeing the contents of the basket.


“Surly the Pie-Eating-King of Refuge is not backing down from a challenge.” Elizabeth said with a grin.


George complimented it with his own easy smile that made Elizabeth’s heart warm. George’s smiles were so rare these days. She went to the bed pushed close to the stove. Abigail could barely be discerned beneath all the covers. “How is she?”


“The doctor gave us some more powders. She slept peaceful. More peaceful than she has in months.” George put the bowl with the porridge on the stove. “Thank you for that Elizabeth.”


Even with his back turned to her Elizabeth could see how much it cost him to accept that little bit of charity. “Thank you George, and Abigail; especially Abigail, this town wasn’t too keen on accepting a little girl who was half Cree and half white. You and Abigail lead the way. For that I will always be in your debt.”


“I’ll leave this here until she wakes up.” George turned away from the stove leaving the bowl of oatmeal to keep it warm.


Elizabeth fidgeted a bit as she watched the big man fold himself onto the table’s bench and draw up to his plate. She bowed her head with him as he said his private grace. When he was finished she plunged in. “George, I was wondering,” Gorge looked up his glance beckoning for her to continue. “I’d like to take the children to town today.”


George looked down at his plate again, rearranged the gravy on the biscuits. “Clair ask you to take her to town?”


“No.” Elizabeth answered cocking her head and wondering if she’d blundered into some family squabble.


“She asked me if we could go see her brother.” Elizabeth waited for George to continue.


“You know I grew up back east, in New York. My dad worked in a factory, until he lost three fingers. He’d always been one that was well acquainted with alcohol. But he worked, and put food on the table. It wasn’t much but it was regular.


“After the accident, he tried. I know he did, but after a while of being turned away… he just kind of gave up. He was in and out of jail, for drinking and thieving.


“I guess I was 13. I was big as him almost by then. I saw him in jail that last night. He’d been in a fight. He was muddy and bloody and almost too drunk to stand. He sobered up pretty quick when the police opened the cell and let me in. He thought I was there to bail him out.


“But I was there to tell him not to come back. I told him I had a job, and I would take care of my mother and sister.” George shrugged. “We had words, we exchanged blows. In the end I had a black eye and a cut lip. He lay stunned at my feet and I said some things I’d rather not repeat in your company.”


George chewed his lip. “I swore that I would be better than him. I would take care of my family and none of mine would end up a disgrace in a cell.” He snorted and gestured around the small bunkhouse. “Now here I am a charity case, with my oldest son in jail.”


There was a stirring from Abigail’s bed. “George, what is this talk of jail. Who’s in jail?” Abigail had propped her frail frame up on her elbow and was looking from her husband to Elizabeth, her eyes large and unnaturally bright from fever.


“Take the children to town Elizabeth.” George said. He squeezed her hand before standing. Elizabeth rose with him and left quietly as George lowered himself slowly to the floor by his wife’s bed.





The sun was rising as Billy made his way stiffly the three yards to the river, canteens rattling from their straps clutched in his shackled hands. Uriah had relented and allowed him this fraction of a freedom after being reminded of the reality that a man did need to stretch his legs once in a while.


He reached the river’s edge and set the canteens down on the grassy bank. It was a beautiful sight in front of him. Green spilling over the hills as the light touched them. And the trees in their fall splendor, set ablaze by the new sun’s rays. He breathed in the sharp smell of dry leaves and pine and the river was chatting pleasantly with the rocks in its path. For the first time in a day, Billy felt his joy return, and with a thankful heart he praised God.


“Are you going to stand there all day dreaming? Get those canteens filled.” Uriah’s orders clanged in like an out of time cymbal clash.


Billy sighed and squatted down and dipped the mouth of the canteens into the cold clear water of the river. Behind him he could hear Uriah pour the last of the coffee over the fire and then stamp it to be sure it was out.


Finished with the first canteen, Billy moved to the next one as Uriah came up beside him to rinse out the coffee pot and the iron skillet.


Suddenly the hair on the back of Billy’s neck stood up. Uriah’s must have too, because his left hand was moving to his gun butt. The unmistakable metallic click of a hammer locking down made both men freeze.


“Get up both of you.” Someone growled from behind. Billy stood up, with difficulty, next to Uriah. “Now turn around slowly. And get your hands up.” Again Uriah obeyed and Billy mirrored the lawman’s actions.


Billy took in the two men who held them at gun point. From the surprised looks on their faces they weren’t expecting to find a U.S. Marshal and his prisoner on the wrong end of their guns.


“Why look at what we got here.” The man opposite Uriah spoke for the first time. “Guess he was saying the truth.”


“Shut up.” The one who had ordered them up barked out at his partner. Though Billy would have guessed they were brothers. Same shadowed jaw lane, and eyes. The older one looked to have had his nose flattened once or twice.


“Do I know you?” Uriah asked.


“No, but you knew our brother.”


Billy had a sinking feeling he knew where this was going. Right side or wrong side of the law, a man didn’t live by the gun and not make enemies. Billy took a quick look at their situation.


Their two captors were armed and neither appeared to be new at the art of keeping men at gun point. Both also had extra ammunition in their belts. On the other hand, his hands were manacled and he was unarmed. On the positive, Uriah still had his weapon.


“What does your quarrel with me have to do with him? Let him go.” Uriah’s question shocked him to staring near open mouthed at his lifelong rival.


“Sorry, can’t do that. You were the prize for him.” The older brother said. Then he waved his gun at Billy. “Get your hands up higher.” Billy put his hands up again, interlacing his fingers and resting them on his head.


“Big, I don’t know about shooting a man in handcuffs.” The younger one said. “Big,” for his part didn’t look too thrilled about the idea either. “We wouldn’t be no better than the marshal.”


“I wasn’t planning on killing him anyway, Little. Go tie him to the tree.”


The sigh that escaped Billy as “Little” pointed the way with the barrel of his gun wasn’t in relief, but in exasperation of yet again being tied to a tree. Little was no slouch with rope as he bound Billy to the same tree Uriah had the night before. The hemp bit his skin through his clothes combating his attempt to puff himself up with air and make the rope loose enough to wriggle out of.  But then he saw his chance. Little was concentrating a little too much on keeping the rope tight as he wound it around the tree. He didn’t notice his path constricting. Billy had just enough movement to reach out and grab Little’s ankle sending him sprawling with a yowl.


Billy struggled to scoot to his feet amidst the now nest of loose rope. He got as far as planting his feet under his back side.


“Don’t even think about it.” Big’s tone could have frozen Hell. Billy found himself staring down the business side of a gun barrel. Apparently he’d had a spar, because a pistol was cocked and pointed at Uriah. The marshal’s chest was heaving and his hand trembled just over the butt of his gun.


Little was up, and he yanked the rope so hard that it forced the air from Billy’s lungs and pinned him to the tree with his seat four inches off the ground. Gravity would finally win, but it would take a while. More time than Uriah had.


“Are you going to try to kill me with your glare, or are we going to get on with this.”


“Eager to die are you?” Big asked.


“More than you know.” The quiet answer carried clearly in the cold morning air.


Billy stopped his struggling.  That note he heard in Uriah’s voice cut right through him. He remembered that tone and the despair it heralded.


He looked up. The three armed men were arranged in kind of a lopsided triangle, one decidedly at a disadvantage as the other two had their weapons drawn, and he did not.


“Now me and Little here, we’re not murders’ like you. So we figure that we’d give you a chance.” Big began. Uriah just waited. “We thought a gun fight’d be fair.”


“A gun fight.”


“Yeah, you know, like they write about in the dime novels. High noon, ten paces, quick draw.” Little interjected.


“We’re going to stand here till noon?” Uriah asked.


“We’re ditching the High noon, and ten paces. We’re keeping the quick draw.” Big said. “And we’re adding something too.”


There was a long pause before Uriah asked. “What.”


“Two against one.” Little couldn’t say that with a straight face.


“And that is supposed to be fair?” Uriah asked.


“You have something of a reputation as a shootist.” Big reasoned.


“You read too many dime novels.” Uriah answered.


Big shrugged. “Perhaps. But we are giving you more of a chance than you gave our brother.”


“If you expect me to agree with you, you have a long wait.” Uriah ended the silence.


“Well then I guess we are all squared away on the rules.” Big and Little holstered their weapons and a stare down ensued.


Billy didn’t even blink as he watched the events unfold in horror. Even with a constant vigil he did not know who flinched first. It seemed as Big and Uriah drew and fired in the same instant, with Little a fraction of a second behind.


Big jerked as he was hit and Billy was sure Uriah got two shots off. But when the dust cleared, it was Uriah who was laying on the ground and Big limping over to his prone form.


Big kicked Uriah’s weapon from his hand and then toed him onto his back. Billy couldn’t see where the lawman was hit, but there was a dark spot on the ground of worrisome proportions. Big was bleeding too, and the blood seeped out from between his finger where he clutched his upper arm.


“Is he dead?” Little asked from his position, still covering Uriah’s still form with his gun.


“Yeah he’s dead.”


“Let’s get out of here then.”


“Get their horses and gear first.” Big instructed.


“What about the other one?”


“Leave him a canteen. Someone will be along in a day or two.” Big answered.


Billy gritted his teeth as he felt the ooze of sap tickle his neck. It was a wonder he hadn’t been permanently cemented to the trunk that morning. He wondered briefly what his body would look like, if they were ever found. Probably like that fly in amb


He pushed the thought away. Near as he could figure Big and Little had been gone for about ten minutes. In that time, the only indication Billy’d had that Uriah was still alive, was that the blood pooling at the lawman’s elbow had spread.


Billy resumed his wriggling. He stretched his finger just a bit and felt the cool metal of the knife butt. He stretched and wiggled a bit more, straining and just caught it between his second and third finger. But it slipped out of his grasp.


He sighed and sank back against the tree trunk. He let his gaze flit over Uriah’s still unmoving form. And he twisted and squirmed again, trying to force his fingers deeper in his boot, until finally he was able to get a grip on the knife and begin to tease it out with painful slowness.








"The longest way around is the shortest way home"


C. S. Lewis

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